[y.a.k]

Hi,

I'm giving you a piece of software that I have been working on for a couple of last days. It's called RemoteKB (Remote Keyboard) and it will let you use your PC as a keyboard for your phone. For 3rd edition only.

RemoteKB consists of two parts:
1. A desktop Python script that catches the keypresses and sends them to the phone.
2. A PyS60 standalone application that receives the keypresses and simulates them using the keypress module.

Requirements:
1. The desktop script needs wxPython (unicode version) to display its GUI.
2. The PyS60 application needs the keypress module in version 1.0.6 or newer (1.0.6 is the latest, get it here).
3. The application sis file has to be signed (Open Signed Online) before using.

Both parts communicate over a virtual Bluetooth serial port, your PC has to expose one as its Bluetooth service and you have to configure the PC part of RemoteKB (using GUI) to use it.

After connecting, you can switch away from the PyS60 application and start controlling other apps using your PC's keyboard.

All the letter and number keys work as expected, including Shift and CapsLock for capitals and special chars on number keys. The current system layout is respected.

Keys such as Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, Backspace, Delete work as expected too.

You can select text using Shift+Cursors, you can cut, copy and paste using Ctrl+X/C/V, as expected.

Numeric keypad is used to simulate raw phone keys so pressing '2' twice, for example, prints 'b'. This is useful on the standby screen because this is the only way to enter a call number there. The dot key on the numpad is used as a raw '#' key, same for the '*' key.

The function keys are used to simulate S60 specific keys:

F1 - Left softkey
F2 - Select
F3 - Right softkey
F4 - Application (Menu)

F5 - Green key
F6 - Red key
F7 - Volume down
F8 - Volume up

Player control:
F9 - Play/Pause
F10 - Stop
F11 - Rewind
F12 - Forward

Ctrl+F1 - Portrait mode (switches whole phone to portrait, see below)
Ctrl+F2 - Landscape mode (switches whole phone to landscape, see below)

Ctrl+F6 - Power

Ctrl+F11 - Device *-key
Ctrl+F12 - Device #-key

All non-character keys properly simulate key-presses and key-releases so you can bring up the task menu by holding the F4 key, you can switch off the phone by holding the Ctrl+F6 or you can seek in the player by holding F11/F12.

Portrait/landscape switching may not work on all devices, it was reported not to work on N95, however, it works on my N73.

Get it here (including sources):
RemoteKB 1.00.2

Hope you like it, waiting for your feedback.

PS: This is the reason why I've updated the keypress module. Text marking using Shift+Cursors or simulation of Application key wouldn't be possible with the old version.

[y.a.k]

I've updated the file because I forgot to disable debugging in the previous one. Only the PC part was changed.

Btw., you may want to change the extension from .py to .pyw on Windows to prevent the console from opening.

[gaba88]

hi y.a.k
congrats you are truely great.
This application really is very cool but its sad for me
i dont have a third edition device if i had it i would be the first person to test it.
Congrats and keep it up

[Rafael T.]

Hey!

Nice app! Congratulations!

Unfortunaly, wxPython doesn't work with mac leopard =[

[Hiisi]

Congratulations! It surely works well with my environment.

• Nokia N73
• Windows XP SP2
• Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba

Even Bluetooth HID keyboard needs its own IME (which usually costs money) to enter Japanese texts, but this RemoteKB doesn't need any other programs other than Python and wxPython on PC and PyS60 and keypress module on the phone. RemoteKB is the most powerful solution to use PC's keyboard for writing SMS or MMS, I think!

My only regret is that I can't enter some marks like question mark, exclamation mark and parenthesis in Japanese mode (of course I can select them from symbols list (* key), so it isn't a serious problem). Anyway, do you have any idea to resolve this problem?

[y.a.k]

Thanks for your appreciation guys.

I didn't know wxPython has problems on Leopard. I tried using Tkinter but it had serious problems with some Alt keys which I need to enter square brackets on my german keyboard.

I still have to test it on Linux.

As for the Japanese keyboard, hm, no idea actually. Do you have these chars on a Japanese keyboard? Are they simply not working or generating wrong chars?

I would also like to mention some known limitations:
* RemoteKB simulates keys in two ways, either as a unicode char or a scancode. Current version wrongly simulates some keys such as backspace as unicode. They work but not in all applications (usually not it those not using them to enter text). I'm working on it.
* The shift key uses a timer to make sure the phone thinks it is held for at least 1 second. This was added because short presses caused the Edit popup menu to open, for example while writing an SMS. However, this is sometimes unwanted. For example in Nokia Maps the shift is used to zoom in. Holding it zooms more. Currently I don't have a solution for this.

[Hiisi]

Thank you for your quick reply.

Originally Posted by y.a.k

As for the Japanese keyboard, hm, no idea actually. Do you have these chars on a Japanese keyboard? Are they simply not working or generating wrong chars?

I checked the unicode of the characters which I can't enter, and found that

• I can enter symbols in the region 30xx. But if the font corresponding to the symbol doesn't exist, "square" will be displayed instead.
  - Screenshot: PC, Phone
• I can NOT enter symbols in the region FFxx (with no "square" substitution).
  - Screenshot: PC (before conversion), PC (after conversion), Phone

I hope this will help you in some ways. But anyway, as I wrote in the last post, it isn't a serious problem, so don't worry about it

And may I request one feature? I'm using a laptop PC which doesn't have numpad. So, I have to NumLock the keyboard beforehand to unlock the keypad (F1 (left softkey) -> *). I want either easier way to simulate device key (combination of some keys?) or keyboard shortcut for unlocking the keypad.

And one more thing. Ctrl + F6 (Power) doesn't work

[y.a.k]

I'm still not sure why the FFxx do not work.

I can map the * device key to for example Ctrl+F11 (and # to Ctrl+F12). Is it ok?

Ctrl+F6 doesn't work indeed, try Ctrl+F4 instead. I thought I moved it to F6 but I it must have forgotten. Next version will use F6 for sure.

Btw. I discovered some problems when using this with my Ped. I accidentally (because of the 1-second-shift thing) pressed Shift+Space or Shift+Enter couple of times and this adds a char with different codes to the appuifw.Text control which it turn causes exceptions when such codes are in the executed code.

They make sense and they are displayed correctly, they are just not handled by current Ped version. Shift+Space adds a NO-BREAK space (U+0080) while Shift+Enter adds a LINE-SEPARATOR (U+2028). A standard Enter adds a PARAGRAPH-SEPARATOR (U+2029) but I knew that already so Ped handles this. A good thing to note is that str.splitlines() correctly splits all kinds of new lines including the two above ones as well as \r, \n or \r\n.

[Hiisi]

Originally Posted by y.a.k

I can map the * device key to for example Ctrl+F11 (and # to Ctrl+F12). Is it ok?

Ctrl+F6 doesn't work indeed, try Ctrl+F4 instead. I thought I moved it to F6 but I it must have forgotten. Next version will use F6 for sure.

I read your PC-side script and I confirmed that Power key is mapped to Ctrl+F4. Of course, Ctrl+F4 worked fine.

I'm using AutoLock to lock a keypad automatically, so Ctrl+F11 for * key will be very convenient for me to toggle lock/unlock. Thank you.

[Rafael T.]

I've seen it doesn't work in Mac OSX Leopard in the download page. It says:

Got an Intel Mac? All of the wxPython builds for OS X are now Universal Binaries, and will work on OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4.x, PPC or Intel.

[y.a.k]

Originally Posted by Hiisi

I'm using AutoLock to lock a keypad automatically, so Ctrl+F11 for * key will be very convenient for me to toggle lock/unlock. Thank you.

Ok then. If you in a hurry, you can add these lines to the map_to_scancode dict right now.

        wx.WXK_F11|0x8000: 0x2a, # EScancodeStar (Ctrl+F11 -> Star)
        wx.WXK_F12|0x8000: 0x7f, # EStdKeyHash (Ctrl+F12 -> Hash)

[krtrivdi]

Nice work! Congrats

[y.a.k]

I've updated the download link in first post to point to a new relese - 1.00.1.

It has both mobile and desktop parts updated. The mobile has a fixed connection error reports, first one could fail without any message. It also detects if you have the envy module installed and uses it to make itself a system application to prevent closing when phone runs low on memory.

The desktop part has some fixes I said about earlier, the new Ctrl+F11/F12 shortcuts and was tested on Linux too (Ubuntu 8.04).

To use it on Linux, you have to follow the tutorials on connecting to a Bluetooth Console. Just run both parts of RemoteKB as soon as you get the channel opened. If you used channel 2, use /dev/rfcomm2 in RemoteKB.

[Rafael T.]

And the Mac OSX Leopard? Will you test it on this OS?

Thanks!

[saadnaji]

Thnak you for the application testing now.